• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.1451-1460
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• 2001

The critical condition of the onset of buoyancy-driven convective motion of uniformly heated horizontal fluid layer was analysed by the propagation theory which transforms the disturbance quantities similarly. The dimensionless critical time, $\tau$$\sub$c/, is obtained as a function of the Rayleigh number and the Prandtl number. Based on the stability criteria and the boundary-layer instability model, a new heat transfer correlation which can cover whole range of Rayleigh number was derived. Our theoretical results predict the experimental results quite reasonably.